The Cuckoo Tree Read Free Page B

send someone to help right our coach and tend to those hurt chaps," Dido said rather aggrievedly, removing herself to the desired location.
    "Gusset, have two of the men go back with this young person. But the injured people certainly cannot come
here;
that is quite out of the question. Suppose Sir Tobit caught some noxious illness from them, and it so near to his coming of age!"
    "Where should they be taken then, marm?" Gusset inquired doubtfully.
    "Someone on the estate can take them in!"
    "There hain't many
left
on the estate now, your ladyship."
    "There are some tenants in Dogkennel Cottages still, are there not? Old Mr. Firkin—Mrs. Lubbage? Very well—take them there."
    Gusset looked even more doubtful, and Dido was not too happy at the sound of Dogkennel Cottages. Still, it's only for a night, she thought; tomorrow I can stop the mail coach or summat. "Maybe your ladyship could tell me where I can get hold of a doctor?" she asked politely.
    "A doctor?" Lady Tegleaze seemed vaguely surprised.
    "Dr. Subito is here, playing tiddlywinks with Mr. Wilfred," the butler reminded her. "I could ask him to step along to the cottages."
    "Why, yes, I suppose he
could
do so, if the child absolutely demands it; though I would not wish
him
to pick up any infection. But come, child, come along; every minute you are here increases the risk to my grandson."
    Lady Tegleaze limped to the door.
    "There, I said how it would be," muttered Sir Tobit sulkily. "Just when I had the chance to hear some new tales, instead of having to make up my own."
    But Dido was eager to be off. "Thanks for the wine and cheese," she called back, and followed Lady Tegleaze.
    At the top of the stairs, Lady Tegleaze came to a halt.
    "Where is Tante Sannie?" she asked Gusset.
    The butler paused a moment before answering. Then he said, in a peculiarly expressionless voice,
    "She was in Mas'r Tobit's room. I reckon she be in your ladyship's room now. Would you wish for me to search?"
    "No—no. I will go myself. Follow me, child."
    Oh crumpet it, Dido thought; now what?
    However she followed along another series of passages. Lady Tegleaze halted outside a door.
    "Wait here," she commanded Dido. She opened the door and called, "Sannie?"
    Through this door Dido could see another large dimly lit chamber filled with a clutter of foreign-looking furniture, draperies, and scattered clothing. A faint, sickly waft of aromatic smoke drifted out. This is a rum house and no mistake, Dido thought.
    Next moment the skin on the back of her neck prickled as something small and dark scuttled from the shadows
inside the room out through the door. It was too small for a person, surely? Could it be a large dog? Or an enormous spider?
    Then she saw that it was in fact a tiny, bent old woman, wrapped in a kind of embroidered blanket, black and white, which covered her entirely except for two very bright eyes which peered up at Dido from under her head swathings.
    "Sannie," said Lady Tegleaze. "You see this girl?"
    "I see her, princessie-ma'am!"
    "Look at her hand for me, Sannie!"
    Dido was disconcerted when a minute, skinny brown claw shot out of the black-and-white draperies and grabbed her hand, turning it over so that the palm came uppermost. The old woman bent over it, mumbling to herself.
    "This girl strong girl—much temper, much willful. Can be angry to push over a house. Can kindly love too. I see her holding gold crown in this hand—she picking it up from ground, she putting it on someone head. I see great pink fish too—"
    "Is this in the past or the future?" interrupted Lady Tegleaze.
    "Past, future, princessie-ma'am—all one."
    "Well, has she any sickness? Is she infectious? Will she harm my grandson?"
    Tante Sannie bent over the hand once more.
    "For mussy's
sake,
" thought Dido, "what a potheration! All over five minutes' chat with a boy that I'll likely never see again."
    "Not sick—no. Strong girl. But something strange here—tree, tree growing. Can't see